You can toss your City of Manteca solid waste calendar blocked off with green and blue cart collection weeks in the trash.
Make sure, though, that it is in the brown cart.
That’s because paper per se still can’t go in the blue cart because the city’s current vendor doesn’t have a way to recycle it.
The current lack of robust municipal recycling aside, one of the major components of Manteca’s effort to bury less trash residents and businesses toss out starts Monday.
That’s when every color of cart residents have — green for food waste/organic waste, blue for items the city currently recycles, and brown for garbage — will start being collected weekly..
And it’s happening with weeks to go before the second of four scheduled annual solid waste hikes goes into effect Jan. 1 to take monthly charges up $3.76 from the current $50.92 to $54.68.
That’s after they went up $16.92 or almost 50 percent a month a year ago.
The upcoming rate jump is one of three in place that will crank the monthly residential charge up to $63.07 by Jan. 1, 2027.
The regional average for 96-gallon service is currently $58.27 compared to Manteca’s current rate of $50.92.
Area cities that already have higher rates than Manteca are Sacramento, $74.19; Tracy, $74.19; and Lodi, $100.37.
The city in mid-2025 will be in a position to again recycle items it hasn’t been able to so — such as the paper the solid waste calendar is printed on that the city mailed to all residential customers — as its current contract with the Lovelace Transfer Station expires.
As far as weekly service for all three carts, the city advices residents they only need to place curbside on their assigned collection day the ones they want dumped.
The brown carts obviously people will likely still want to have collected weekly.
Whether the blue or green cart is put curbside when it isn’t full or near it is the customer’s choice.
It’s up to them to decide.
That said, one of the reason the switch to weekly green cart collection availability was made was due to the collection of food waste with organic yard waste.
The food waste could create smells and attract flies. That isn’t an in issue now, but it will be when warmer weather returns.
The ability to place blue carts out each week doubles the recycling capabilities of each home aggregated over every two weeks.
That is also designed to avoid people from contaminating recyclable items with garbage.
Public Works Director Carl Brown said due to the struggle the city is having securing commercial truck drivers, collections may end up taking place later in the day as Manteca may have to run some drivers on overtime initially to cover three collections on every route.
“If the carts are still out at 2 p.m. that means we haven’t gotten to them yet,” Brown said. “We will get to them on that day.”
After a few months, Brown expects to have all start-up issues dealing with weekly collections — including manpower— addressed.
The city is effectively increasing its weekly solid waste residential collection effort by 50 percent.
Currently, green cart and green cart collections alternate every other week.
Brown stressed households will continue to be serviced on days they are now assigned.
The third cart — assuming a household places all three out weekly — will create some challenges.
They need to be set at least three feet apart for the automatic hydraulic arm to work.
The third cart will also take up more space curbside.
Residents are reminded not to crowd carts they — or their neighbors — set out on collection days with vehicles parked on the street.
The three cart weekly collection is the first step toward getting more compliance with existing city rules as well as looming state mandates requiring a significant reduction in the amount of solid waste buried at landfills.
By increasing the capacity of what people can place at curbside, the city in the coming months will be stepping up efforts to have all households comply with basic rules.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
